Monday, March 11, 2024

(2024) Week 10: White Chicken Chili

The Recipe
100g bacon
Butter
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced (optional)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1tsp cumin
½dl flour
1l chicken broth
1 340g jar of salsa
450g chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 large potatoes, cubed
2,5dl cream
100g shredded cheddar cheese
1 small can of corn (or the equivalent frozen)
Salt, pepper

Cook the bacon in a pot. Set aside, reserving the bacon grease.

Turn down the heat, add butter to the grease if necessary and cook onion, bell pepper and jalapeno for 5-10 minutes. Add garlic and cumin and cook for about a minute. Sprinkle in the flour, mix and cook for a minute.

Add broth, salsa, chicken and potatoes. Bring to a boil and leave to simmer until the potatoes and chicken is done - about 20 minutes, adding the corn about half-way through.

Add the cream and cheese and let it melt. Return the bacon to the pot and season with salt and pepper.

The Verdict
The original recipe had 2 entire cups of corn which ended up being FAR too much! I'll try to make it with just one can next time instead of two - or I might go ahead and replace the second up with beans instead, to turn it into more of a chili.

But apart from that, I loved it! The chili I had found was on weak enough for my DH to be handle the heat, and I just added chili flakes to my bowl when serving it instead. I'd wondered if the chicken would suffer from just being boiled, instead of being browned on the pan first, but that wasn't the case at all, and it ended up being really juicy and tender. Definitely worth a repeat.

Monday, February 26, 2024

(2024) Week 9: Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken

The Recipe
450g chicken
3 garlic cloves, minced
3tbsp honey
4tbsp ketchup
4 tbsp soy sauce
oregano

In a bowl, mix together last 5 ingredients.
Place chicken in the crockpot, pour sauce on top and cook on LOW for 4-5 hours (HIGH for 3-4 hours).
Cut the chicken into thick slices and return to the crockpot for ~15 minutes to soak up the sauce.

Serve with rice and some veggies.

The Verdict
This is my favourite type of recipe - super easy to make and REALLY yummy! What's not to like?! :-D I cooked mine for 4.5 hours (including the 15 minutes after carving) and the chicken turned out PERFECT! Not dry at all. Definitely a keeper.

I served it with the air fryer carrot fries found elsewhere on this blog.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

(2024) Week 3: Air Fried Chinese Duck

The Recipe
(Serves 2)
2 duck breasts
2tbsp soy sauce
2tbsp honey (divided)
1tsp five spice powder (divided) (I didn't have this, but google told me I could use garam marsala instead...)

Prepare ahead of time Mix together the soy sauce, half the honey and haft the five spice powder in a bowl with a flat bottom. Pat dry the skin of the duck and put into the bowl skin-side up, making sure the skin isn't covered by the marinade - dump some out of you have to. Cover, but leave a few holes for air to circulate and leave in the fridge overnight.

Place the duck in the air fryer, skin side up and pat the skin dry one last time. Cook at 165C for 15 minutes.

Mix together 2tbsp warm water, the rest of the honey and the rest of the five spice powder. Coat the skin of the duck with the honey mixture and cook at 200C for another 10 minutes.

The Verdict
Smelled sort of weird while cooking, so I was a bit hesitant, but OH my goodness! It tasted AMAZING! I had added potatoes to the air fryer and cooked the duck on top of them, which worked really well, but honestly, you can serve this duck with just about anything that doesn't require a sauce of some sort. Would be delicious in a salad as well.

Next time I also want to try to add 1tbsp oyster sauce and 1tbsp minced garlic to the marinade as I didn't have oyster sauce and forgot(!!) the garlic this time around.

Really delicious, so I will definitely be making this again!

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

(2024) Week 2: Raspberry Lemonade

When tidying up the freezer, I discovered I had a TON of raspberries from my garden, so I figured it was time to actually do something about them. All measurements are VERY approximate as I didn't actually measure anything, but just went with what looked/felt right...

The Recipe('ish)
1.5kg raspberries
Enough water to just cover them
~300g sugar
~1dl lime juice

Add raspberries and water to a large pot and bring to a slow boil. Once the water is almost boiling (medium-sized bubbles, not violent bubbles - or when the water is 90C if you have a meat themometer), mash the berries up against the side of the pot.
Cover a colander with a dishcloth that you don't mind staining purple and pour the raspberries through the dishcloth into another pot. Leave to drain for awhile until it's stopped dripping, even when you move the mess around a bit (I had to do this in batches, as my colander could only fit about half at a time.). Discard the contents of the dishcloth.

Bring the lemonade to a boil again, adding sugar and the lime juice. Once it's almost boiling, taste and add more sugar or lime juice as desired. Transfer to bottles and put in the fridge to cool.

I found that this ended up being quite concentrated, so mix it up with water / sparkling water before drinking it, but it all depends on how much water you added when mashing the raspberries in the first step.

The Verdict
Yummy! Lots of work, but worth it! This would taste really awesome mixed in a drink as well.

Friday, January 5, 2024

(2024) Week 1: Crockpot BBQ Tenderloin

The Recipe
(Serves 2)
500g tenderloin
1 cup BBQ sauce
1 tbsp mustard
Salt
Paprika, oregano and cumin to taste

Combine BBQ sauce, mustard and spices in a crockpot. Add tenderloin and scoop the sauce over the meat to coat it.

Cook on HIGH for ~1.5hrs or LOW for ~3 hours until the meat reaches 65*C.

Remove from the slow cooker and let it rest for 10 minutes. Slice and return to the sauce. Serve with potatoes.

The Verdict
The original recipe said to cook it on high for 2hrs - that was FAR too long, as the meat had reached 72C and was rather dry. I think 1-1.5hrs will fit better (I've adjusted the cooking times on low accordingly). For that reason, I wasn't too impressed by it. DH loved it though, and is eager for me to make it again :-P

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Week 39: Smothered Chicken

The Recipe

2 chicken breasts, cut into halves
8 pieces of bacon
200-250g mushrooms, sliced thinly
1 small onion, sliced thinly (optional)
1dl shredded cheddar
1dl shredded mozzerella

For the marinade:
1/2 dl honey
1/2 dl dijon mustard
1tsp oil
1/2tsp lemon juice
Salt, pepper, paprika

Prepare ahead of time: Mix the ingredients for the marinade together in a small bowl. Use an electric whisk and whisk for ~30 seconds to get the mustard and honey fully mixed. Pour 2/3 of the marinade over the chicken, cover and leave to marinade in the fridge for 2-3 hours. Reserve the rest of the marinade and keep chilled.

Preheat oven to 200C.

In a pan cook bacon until desired crispness. Remove from pan, but leave juices behind. Add mushroom and onion (if used) and cook until soft. Remove from pan. Add chicken and sear for 3 minutes on each side. Transfer to ovenproof dish and cover with 2 slices of bacon each. Pour mushroom/onions on top and cover with cheese. Drizzle with a bit of the marinade.

Bake for 7-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the chicken is done.

Serve with baked potatoes and a salad and the reserved marinade on the side.

The Verdict
REALLY good! I'd ended up leaving the chicken to cook for a bit too long, so it was kinda dry, but the taste could not be beat! Very yummy and definitely something I'm going to make again!

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Week 30: Carrot Fries

The Recipe
4 carrots
1tbsp olive oil
1 tsp each of paprika, garlic powder and corn flour (or other spices)
Salt to taste

Peel the carrots and cut them into fries.
In a bowl, mix together oil, paprika, garlic powder and corn flour. Add carrotsand stir to coat.

Preheat the air-fryer to 200C. Add carrot fries and cook for 15-20 minutes, shaking after 10 minutes and taste checking after 15 minutes. If you have more fries than will fit into a mostly single layer, split them up into several batches for the best results.

Add salt and serve immediately.

The Verdict
This looked like a lot of carrot, but they shrunk significantly in the airfryer, so I would say this amount is only JUST enough for 2 people. They were really good though, so I could definitely see myself making them again. They're only slightly more timeconsuming to make than just plain carrot sticks and taste great :-D